NHRC Commences Comprehensive Project for Human Rights Education and Entrusts to carry out the researches
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is promoting establishment of a “Five-Year National Plan for Human Rights Education” to increase our society’s overall sensitivity to human rights issues. In doing so, the NHRC is both conforming to the demands of civic groups and human rights NGOs for “an aggressive carrying-out of human rights education on a broad scale” as well as simultaneously developing a Korean model of the “Plan of Action for the Decade (1995-2004),” recommended by the United Nations under the aegis of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education, towards laying down the foundations for comprehensive and systematic implementation of human rights education in Korea. Comprehensive programmes for the implementation of human rights education in Member States—called National Action Plans for human rights education—are currently being established and implemented in the Asia region by Japan, the Philippines, India and Thailand.
The first stage of the NHRC Five-Year National Plan will entrust to carry out researches concerning surveys identifying national human rights education needs as well as policy issues. The research areas include: 1) analysis of the conditions for human rights education on the domestic and international levels (assessing the current state of the development of human right education programs and materials; assessing governmental agency and NGO activities for human rights education); 2) researching promotion strategies that galvanize human rights education (approaches that cover stages of an individual’s lifespan from infancy to old age as well as targeting of specific groups); and 3) identifying sub-tasks (planning programs and capacity-building for human rights education on the regional level within Korea; plans to construct a collaborative network of agencies, NGOs, and experts on human rights education).
While on the one hand, the NHRC will identify the diverse human rights education needs in the different classes and stratums of Korean society through research, on the other hand, the NHRC also plans to canvass public opinion on policy issues in a transparent manner through public talks and meetings. When the proposal for the Five-Year National Plan is finalized, the NHRC will, on the one hand, sponsor public hearings to set the concrete long-term and medium-term tasks while on the other hand, prepare proposals for an implementation system through consultation with related governmental agencies and support for creating a network for nongovernmental-sector participation. It is expected that the “Five-Year National Plan for Human Rights Education” will be finalized and publicly announced by the latter half of 2004. When the Five-Year National Plan is put into effect in 2005, the level of awareness of human rights issues in Korean society will be dramatically improved.
